No Regrets

Summary

THE MUSIC, THE MAKEUP, THE MADNESS, AND MORE. . . . In December of 1972, a pair of musicians placed an advertisement in the Village Voice: “GUITARIST WANTED WITH FLASH AND ABILITY.” Ace Frehley figured he had both, so he answered the ad. The rest is rock ’n’ roll history.

He was just a boy from the Bronx with stars in his eyes. But when he picked up his guitar and painted stars on his face, Ace Frehley transformed into “The Spaceman”—and helped turn KISS into one of the top-selling bands in the world. Now, for the first time, the beloved rock icon reveals his side of the story with no-holds-barred honesty . . . and no regrets.

For KISS fans, Ace offers a rare behind-the-makeup look at the band’s legendary origins, including the lightning-bolt logo he designed and the outfits his mother sewed. He talks about the unspoken division within the band—he and Peter Criss versus Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons—because the other two didn’t “party every day.” Ace also reveals the inside story behind his turbulent breakup with KISS, their triumphant reunion a decade later, and his smash solo career. Along the way, he shares wild stories about dancing at Studio 54 with “The Bionic Woman,” working as a roadie for Jimi Hendrix, and bar-flying all night with John Belushi. In the end, he comes to terms with his highly publicized descent into alcohol, drugs, and self-destruction—ultimately managing to conquer his demons and come out on top.

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No Regrets - Ace Frehley

A BRONX TALE

When I was a kid I used to carry around this awful image in my head—a picture of three men tangled awkwardly in high-tension wires, fifty feet in the air, their lifeless bodies crisping in the midday sun.

The horror they endured was shared with me by my father, an electrical engineer who worked, among other places, at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, helping with the installation of a new power plant in the 1950s. Carl Frehley was a man of his times. He worked long hours, multiple jobs, did the best he could to provide a home for his wife and kids. Sometimes, on Sunday afternoons after church, he’d pile the whole family into a car and we’d drive north through the Bronx, into Westchester County, and eventually find ourselves on the banks of the Hudson River. Dad would take us on a tour of the West Point campus and grounds, introduce us to people, even take us into the control room of the electrical plant. I’m still not sure how he pulled that one off—getting security clearance for his whole family—but he did.

Dad would walk around, pointing out various sights, explaining the rhythm of his day and the work that he did, sometimes talking in the language of an engineer, a language that might as well have been Latin to me. Work was important, and I guess in some way he just wanted his kids to understand that; he wanted us to see this other part of his life.

One day, as we headed back to the car, my father paused and looked up at the electrical wires above, a net of steel and cable stretching across the autumn sky.

You know, Paul, he said, every day at work, we have a little contest before lunch.

I had no idea what he was talking about.

A contest? Before lunch?

Sounded like something we might have done at Grace Lutheran, where I went to elementary school in the Bronx.

We draw straws to see who has to go out and pick up sandwiches for the whole crew. If you get the shortest straw, you’re the delivery boy.

That was the beginning. From there, my father went on to tell us the story of the day he drew the short straw. While he was out picking up sandwiches, there was a terrible accident back on the job. Someone had accidentally thrown a switch, restoring power to an area where three men were working. Tragically, all three men were electrocuted instantly. When my father returned, he couldn’t believe his eyes. The bodies of his coworkers were being peeled off the high-tension wires.

Right up there, he said quietly, looking overhead. That’s where it happened.

He paused, put a hand on my shoulder.

If I hadn’t drawn the short straw that day, I’d have been up there in those wires, and I wouldn’t be here right now.

I looked at the wires, then at my father. He smiled.

Sometimes you get lucky.

Dad would repeat that story from time to time, just often enough to keep the nightmares flowing. That wasn’t his intent, of course—he always related the tale in a whimsical what if? tone—but it was the outcome nonetheless. You tell a little kid that his old man was nearly fried to death, and you’re sentencing him to a few years of sweaty, terror-filled nights beneath the sheets. I get his point now, though. You never know what life might bring… or when it might come to a screeching halt.

And it’s best to act accordingly.

The Carl Frehley I knew (and it’s important to note that I didn’t know him all that well) was quiet and reserved, a model of middle-class decorum, maybe because he was so fucking tired all the time. My father was forty-seven years old by the time I came into this world, and I sometimes think he was actually deep into a second life at that point. The son of German and Dutch immigrants, he’d grown up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, finished three years of college, and had to leave school and go to work. Later on he moved to New York and married Esther Hecht, a pretty young girl seventeen years his junior. My mom had been raised on a farm in Norlina, North Carolina. My grandfather was from northern Germany—the island Rügen, to be precise. My grandmother was also German, but I’d always heard whispers of there being some American Indian blood in our family. It was boredom, more than anything else, that brought my mom to New York. Tired of life on the farm, she followed her older sister Ida north and lived with her for a while in Brooklyn.

Dad, meanwhile, came for the work.

There was always a little bit of mystery surrounding my dad, things he never shared; nooks and crannies of his past were always a taboo subject. He married late, started a family late, and settled into a comfortable domestic and professional routine. Every so often, though, there were glimpses of a different man, a different life.

My dad was an awesome bowler, for example. He never talked about being part of a bowling league or even how he learned the game. God knows he only bowled occasionally while I was growing up, but when he did, he nailed it. He had his own ball, his own shoes, and textbook form that helped him throw a couple of perfect games. He was also an amazing pool player, a fact I discovered while still in elementary school, when he taught me how to shoot. Dad could do things with a pool cue that only the pros could do, and when I look back on it now I realize he may have spent some time in a few shady places. He once told me that he had beaten the champion of West Virginia in a game of pool. I guess you have to be pretty good to beat the state champion of any sport.

Hey, Dad. What’s your high run? I once asked him while we were shooting pool.

One forty-nine, he said, without even looking up.

Holy shit…

I must have been only about ten years old at the time, and I didn’t immediately grasp the enormity of that number, but I quickly realized it meant making 149 consecutive shots without missing.

That’s ten fuckin’ racks!

You have to know what you’re doing to polish off that many balls without screwing up. And that little piece of information, coupled with the times I saw him execute trick shots and one-handed shots, made me wonder even more about his elusive past. Perhaps, when he was younger, he lived life in the fast lane and we had much more in common than one might think. Maybe, just maybe, Carl Frehley kicked some ass.

It’s kinda fun to think so, anyway.

I grew up just off Mosholu Parkway in the Bronx, not far from the New York Botanical Garden and Bronx Zoo. It was a middle-class neighborhood of mixed ethnic backgrounds, consisting of mostly German, Irish, Jewish, and Italian families. Ours was pretty normal and loving, a fact I came to appreciate even more after I began hanging out with some serious badasses who were always trying to escape their violent and abusive home lives. Conversely, my dad never hit or abused me as a child, but I often wondered how much he really cared about me since we never did anything together one-on-one. Now as I think back, I realize more and more that he loved me, and that he did the best he could under the circumstances.

It’s pretty hard to look at the Frehleys and suggest that my upbringing contributed in any way to my wild and crazy lifestyle and the insanity that was to ensue. Sure, my dad was a workaholic and never home, but there was always food on the table, and we all felt secure. My parents enjoyed a happy and affectionate marriage—I can still see them holding hands as they walked down the street, or kissing when Dad came home from work. They always seemed happy together, and there was very little fighting at home. We had relatives in Brooklyn and North Carolina, all on my mother’s side, but I knew very little about my dad’s side of the family. There were no photo albums or letters, no interesting stories or visits from aunts and uncles. Nothing. I knew he had a brother who had tragically drowned at age eight, but the rest was sketchy at best. When I tried to ask him for more details, my mom would intervene.

Don’t push your father, she’d say. It’s too painful for him.

So I’d let it go.

People who know me only as the Spaceman probably find this hard to believe, but I was raised in a family that stressed education and religion. My parents also understood the value of the arts and sciences. The way I’m fascinated with computers and guitars, my dad was fascinated with motors and electrical circuits, and he used to build his own batteries in the basement as a child. I know he was very good at what he did because in addition to his work at West Point, he also serviced the elevator motors in the Empire State Building, and was involved in designing the backup ignition system for the Apollo spacecraft for NASA. He had notebooks filled with formulas and sketches, projects he worked on until the wee hours of the morning.

So my parents emphasized learning, and two of their three children got the message. My sister, Nancy, who is eight years my senior, was a straight-A student who went on to get a master’s degree in chemistry; she taught high school chemistry for a while before getting married to start a family. My brother, Charles, was an honors student as well. He studied classical guitar at New York University, where he finished tenth in his class.

Then there was me, Paul Frehley, the youngest of three kids and the black sheep to boot.

In the beginning I enjoyed school and team sports, but as I got older, my social life and music began taking precedence over my studies. I remember coming home with B’s, C’s, and D’s on my report card and hearing my parents complain.

Why can’t you be more like Charlie and Nancy?

I’d just throw up my hands. Between bands and girlfriends, who had time to study?

You’re wasting your life, Paul, my dad would say, shaking his head.

Once, just to prove a point, I told my parents that I’d study hard for a semester and prove I was just as bright as my brother and sister. And you know what? I got all A’s and B’s on the next report card. (Much later, it was the same sort of I told you so attitude that would compel me to challenge the other guys in KISS to an IQ test. Just for the record, I scored highest: 163, which is considered genius.) Now, I know I drove my parents crazy, but God had other plans for me. It all stemmed from something I sensed at an early age: the desire to become a rock star and follow my dreams. Crazy as that sounds, I really believed it would happen.

You can partially credit my blind ambition to Mom and Dad! You see, if there was a common thread within our family, it was music. Thanks to the influence of our parents, all the Frehley kids played instruments. My father was an accomplished concert pianist: he could perform Chopin and Mozart effortlessly. My mom played the piano, too, and she enjoyed banging out a few tunes at family gatherings. Charlie and Nancy took piano lessons and performed at recitals as well. They eventually started fooling around with the guitar and formed a folk group, but that was never my cup of tea. From the beginning, I was drawn to rock ’n’ roll and started figuring out songs by the Beatles and the Stones on my brother’s acoustic guitar. One day, by chance, I picked up my friend’s new electric guitar and checked it out. I plugged it in, turned the amp up to ten, and strummed a power chord.

I immediately fell in love. It was a life-changing event! I was only twelve, but I was totally hooked. Within a couple of years I had a Fender Tele and a Marshall amp in my bedroom, and I’d sold my soul to rock ’n’ roll. There was no turning back.

My parents were not entirely unsupportive of my obsession (Dad even bought me my first electric guitar as a Christmas present), probably because it beat the alternative. There were worse vices, worse behavior, as I’d already demonstrated. See, at the same time that I was teaching myself guitar and forming my first band, I was also running with a pretty tough crowd. So while it may be true that the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle nearly killed me as an adult, it’s also true that without music, I might never have made it to adulthood in the first place.

I started hanging out with the toughest guys in the neighborhood when I was still in grammar school, playing poker, drinking, cutting school—generally just looking for trouble. At first I was uncomfortable with some of the things I had to do, but I learned pretty quickly that alcohol made everything a lot easier. I didn’t like to fight, but fearlessness came with a few beers. Talking to girls was sometimes awkward, but with a little buzz I could charm them right out of their pants.

The first drink? I remember it well. Every drinker remembers his first drink, just as vividly as he remembers his first fuck. I was eleven years old and hanging out with my brother and his friend Jeffrey. Jeff’s father had a small cabin on City Island in the Bronx, and we went there one Friday after school. The plan was to do some fishing and hang out. I loved fishing when I was a kid; I still do. And it was on that weekend that I discovered that beer went hand in hand with fishing. Jeff’s dad had left a six-pack of Schaefer beer in the fridge, and we each had a can or two. Not exactly hard-core drinking, but enough to get me comfortably numb. I can remember exactly how it felt, smooth and dry. Pretty soon I felt kind of lightheaded and silly, and I couldn’t stop laughing. Then I passed out. The next thing I remember is waking up in the morning with a slight headache and a dry mouth, but to be honest, I couldn’t wait to do it again.

And I didn’t wait. Not long, anyway.

The following weekend, we ended up going to a party with more beer and girls—older girls! I’d been attracted to girls for a while by now, but this was unexplored territory. Here I was, playing Spin the Bottle and Seven Minutes in Heaven with thirteen-year-olds, but after my first beer, all I can remember is thinking, bring it on!

I’d found girls and alcohol to be a great combination.

The rock ’n’ roll would soon follow.

GANGS OF NEW YORK

The social divide in my neighborhood was fairly clear: either you were a strong student with designs on college… or you weren’t. My brother and sister fell into the first category; I fell into the second. Like a lot of kids drifting through school in the Bronx in the 1950s and early ’60s, I sought friendship and camaraderie in a different circle, one populated by kids who favored leather jackets and jeans, and greased-up pompadours.

The transition occurred right around the time I went through puberty (doesn’t it always?). Through much of elementary school I’d been an indifferent but harmless student, a kid who preferred sports to studying. I was taller than most of my friends, lanky and reasonably athletic, so most games came easily to me. I played shortstop in baseball, was cocaptain of my school’s basketball team, and won a handful of medals in track and field. About the only game I didn’t like was football. I was skinny as a kid, without an ounce of extra flesh. Good for playing basketball (and not a bad look for a guitar player, I might add), but not so great for football. One of the local cops talked me and some buddies into joining the Police Athletic League football team one year, and I can still remember the opening kickoff. The ball sailed right into my arms and I took off down the sideline, figuring I had the speed and moves to make a good return.

Wrong.

I never even saw the kid coming. He nailed me right in the chest and knocked the wind outta me! The ball went one way, my helmet went another. For several seconds I lay there gasping—I’d never had been hit like that, and I couldn’t believe how much it hurt. It was scary as hell; from that point on, I realized football wasn’t for me.

Truth is, much as I’d like to claim otherwise, I was not a particularly tough kid. That much was revealed not merely on the football field, but on the streets of the Bronx as well. I was a fun-loving kid who liked music and sports. I didn’t fit neatly into the laid-back, studious group; neither did I fit neatly into the gang scene. The tough guys were always testing other kids, pushing people around, seeing how far they could go before they’d trigger a response. I hated that feeling of apprehension, having to worry about walking to the candy store, or coming home from school, not knowing who might be waiting around the next corner smoking cigarettes, listening to doo-wop music, and waiting for an opportunity to kick the shit out of some little kid.

Basically, for these guys, it was target practice.

And on more than one occasion, I was the target.

Admittedly, there were times I invited the attention (although that wasn’t my intent). Like I said, I started early with girls, and when you were messing around with girls in my neighborhood it was wise to exercise some caution and common sense. Specifically, only an idiot would chase girls who were attached in one way or another to one of the local gangs.

Well, what the fuck? For a smart kid, I could be a real idiot. Stubborn, too. I’m a Taurus, after all.

Dominating the street scene in this part of the Bronx was the Ducky Gang, a collection of kids ranging in age from the early teens to the mid-twenties. Predominantly Irish, but with a sprinkling of Italian and German thrown in, the Duckies were a formidable group whose turf centered around the Twin Lakes (the duck pond) section of the New York Botanical Garden. The Ducky Boys were born around the time I was in elementary school, and their rise paralleled my adolescence. Although they died out in the mid-1970s (only to be immortalized in the movie The Wanderers), they were the Kings of New York as far as I was concerned, and my fear of them was surpassed only by my desire to join their ranks. Not necessarily because I admired them or wanted to be part of a gang, but simply because I got tired of getting my ass kicked.

The moment of clarity came one afternoon while walking home from school, when I was about twelve or thirteen. I’d been hanging out with this pretty girl for a few weeks, chasing her on weekends, looking for her at parties, occasionally stealing a little make-out time. Well, I should have known better. The girl had already been claimed by one of the Ducky Boys, so protocol dictated that everyone else keep their distance.

She was, for all practical purposes, untouchable.

And I touched.

So there I was, strolling through the park, minding my own business, when all of a sudden this chick’s boyfriend pops out from behind a tree and steps in front of me. I wasn’t even sure how to react. The kid was a year or two older than me, a head taller, and probably twenty-five pounds heavier; a grown man, by comparison. I froze for a moment and tried to weigh my options.

Drop my schoolbooks and run like hell?

Exercise a little diplomacy? (I’d always been pretty nimble when it came to talking my way out of trouble.)

Down the road I’d learn the finer points of street fighting, the most important of which is this: always get off the first shot. But I was inexperienced and scared. Before I had a chance to react, the kid leaned forward and punched me in the face. I went down for the count.

I don’t know how long I was unconscious, probably only a few seconds. But when I came to, with my head aching and my vision blurred, the kid was standing over me.

Stay away from my girl, he said, or I’ll fuckin’ kill you.

And then he went off, leaving me there alone, dizzy and disoriented, wondering whether any girl was worth so much trouble.

But, of course, they were. I’ve had a problem with females my entire life, and by that I mean, women have always gotten me into trouble. More accurately, I’ve gotten myself into trouble because of women. It’s been a recurring theme of self-destruction, right up there with drugs and alcohol; from the time I learned how to use it, I’ve too often led with my dick, and I’ve taken a lot of punishment as a result.

There was, however, no reasoning with my adolescent mind (to say nothing of my adolescent hormones). Another guy would have gone home and jerked off to a Playboy magazine until he found a girl more suitable to his position in life. Not me. I liked the wilder chicks for a very good reason: they put out. That left me and my blue balls with basically two choices.

1) Find another girl.

2) Join the Duckies.

I chose option number two.

The Ducky Gang didn’t accept just anyone. You had to prove yourself worthy by being put through an initiation that lasted for several weeks. For me, that turned out to be a good thing. The lag between my first expression of interest and the point of no return (fullblown gang membership) was so vast that I had time to develop other, less risky interests—like playing the guitar. For a while, though, I really wanted to be part of a gang and felt the need to be accepted.

We were known, unofficially, as the Junior Duckies. I loved being part of the gang and enjoyed the security they offered, even if it included some of the same guys who had been making my life miserable a few years before. For the Junior Duckies, gang life was mostly about mischief and messing around with girls. Every weekend we’d get together at the duck pond and drink beer, get all riled up, and go looking for trouble. That didn’t take much effort, as the Duckies weren’t the only gang in town. We’d wander down to the Bronx River Parkway, near the edge of Ducky turf, and if we found anyone venturing over the line we’d quickly engage in a rumble. These were less lethal in those days. While some of the older guys in the Ducky Gang carried knives and zip guns, we usually resorted to chains or baseball bats. For the Junior Duckies excitement came in the form of taking risks. We’d hitch rides on the backs of city buses and elevated trains, activities that usually caught the attention of the local cops and led to us being chased all over the neighborhood. Cheap thrills, I guess you’d say. When we weren’t fighting or partying with the local chicks, in the winter we’d sometimes throw snowballs at patrol cars just to get a reaction. They’d hit the lights and give chase, and we’d scatter in all directions. Stupid? Sure. But it was exciting and lots of fun. A couple of times I got busted and ended up down at the Fifty-Second Precinct, where my parents would have to come and pick me up. After a while my mom used to worry whenever I left the house.

Please be careful out there tonight, Paul, she’d say, wringing her hands.

But she never tried to stop me, and neither did my father. By the time I was fourteen, I was basically spinning out of control. I didn’t want to stay home or do my homework, or even go to school, for that matter. I just wanted to hang out with my friends and party. I wanted it so bad that I was willing to go through a Junior Ducky initiation. Fighting was part of it, obviously; if the Duckies got in a fight, you were expected to be there, and to stand up for your buddies. Maybe you’d be assigned a target—some poor kid at school who had pissed off one of the Duckies—and your job was to lay him out. I’d been on the receiving end of those encounters; now I was being asked to dole out the punishment. Cowards, in any form, were not welcome. Sometimes, to prove you had balls, you were asked to do something dangerous.

Or stupid.

Or, in my case, both.

Come on, Paul, get your skinny ass out there!

We were standing near an overpass above Webster Avenue on a Saturday night, and below, the weekend traffic was busy. Here was the moment of truth. If I wanted to be part of the gang I’d have to show a willingness to put my life at risk. This time I was on my own.

This is fucking nuts, I said.

And it was. They told me to crawl out on a catwalk under the bridge and then hang from a beam with my feet dangling over the highway. I guzzled a couple of beers to boost my confidence, but I was still scared. I took a deep breath and got down on my hands and knees. I was so nervous, I nearly pissed my pants, but my fear was outweighed by my need to be accepted. If I could just get through this insane ritual without killing myself, I’d finally be part of the toughest gang in my neighborhood. Then I’d have protection. No one would ever fuck with me again. For that, believe it or not, I was willing to risk my life.

A few moments later, I was hanging above the highway. I could hear my friends yelling and cheering, but I couldn’t make out a word they were saying with the noise from the traffic below. I forced my eyes open and looked back to the edge of the bridge. They were waving me back in. I pulled my legs into my chest and crawled back to safety, where I was greeted with open arms.

I was finally in!

In the Bronx they referred to it as beer muscles—a phenomenon in which an otherwise low-key, fun-loving guy gets drunk and suddenly becomes willing to fight with anyone. That was me. If I had two or three beers I’d go up against anybody, because basically I had no fear. With each drink the inhibitions faded, and so did any concern over repercussions. Maybe that’s why people would back down from me (well, that and the fact that I had the Duckies on my side). I was tall and skinny, and not really great with my fists, but when I drank I felt like a superhero. I’d fight anybody, with almost no provocation. I won a lot of fights just because I refused to back down. People tend to think you’re a little crazy when you’re that quick to fire, and who wants to fight a crazy guy?

Alcohol, mainly beer, made me a different person, and I kind of liked that person. He wasn’t afraid of anything or anybody. Not only that, but he was smooth as silk when it came to dealing with girls. It all goes hand in hand. Women like guys who are confident, funny, cocky. A little bit dangerous. I was all of those things in a single package. And as my fascination with music intensified in the coming years, I discovered that while alcohol did not make me a better guitar player, it did make me a more outgoing performer. When I was younger, playing at school dances or church activities, I suffered from stage fright. But if I had a couple of drinks, the nervousness melted away. I was Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix, all rolled into one. I owned the fucking room!

Drinking was always part of what we did in the Junior Duckies. Some of my friends were also into sniffing glue. It was readily available, the perfect cheap high for a kid. I did glue only a few times as a kid (and once as an adult—more on that later), and frankly found the trips to be either completely uneventful or nightmarish. The bad one happened behind a gas station near Frisch Field (named after the great ballplayer Frankie Frisch, a Bronx native, I’m proud to say). I huddled up with a couple buddies, both experienced huffers, and we snipped the cap off a tube of glue and went to work.

Some of the details escape me, but I do remember an overwhelming feeling of paranoia and fear. I became convinced that I had died and gone to hell; I was completely detached from reality. To this day it remains one of the most frightening experiences I’ve ever had with drugs—and that’s saying something.

For a while afterward I was thoroughly antidrug. I’d drink beer, of course, but that’s about it. In fact, a couple of years would pass before I’d even try smoking pot. By that time I’d begun hanging out with other musicians, guys who weren’t part of my gang, or any other gang, for that matter. More like hippies. All of a sudden I started changing my hairstyle—out with the pompadour, in with the longer, shaggier look. I became fascinated with the British Invasion—the Beatles and the Stones especially—and then I started gravitating toward other musicians who played the music I liked to play. Those guys, for the most part, weren’t tough guys; they were peace-and-love guys and rockers.

And I had one foot in their world.

If not for music I’m sure I would have become a full-fledged gang member and ended up either dead or in jail. But music pulled me away from that. It literally saved my life. I started playing on weekends, rehearsing at night, and eventually the guys in the Ducky Gang turned their backs on me. Can’t blame them, really. How much rejection can you take?

Reviews

Good book. Shows Ace taking responsibility for his actions. From all accounts, Simmons and Stanley have always been selfish and conniving. Especially Gene. But after listening to Gene speak about himself, I would bet my last dollar every word in here is TRUE. I’m glad to see Ace got his crap together. And it proves that although a person may be sober, they can still be shady as any addict on his worse day!

As a life-long KISS fan, I wasn't expecting to learn a whole lot from Ace's book that I didn't already know. By and large, I was right, but most of the book was enjoyable nonetheless.Ace, as he readily admits, is a screw-up. Being very anti-drug myself, I tend to side with Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons on most things KISS related. If you can't rely on someone, you need to find alternative ways to achieve a goal. Clearly they put up with much of Ace's shenanigans and genuinely tried to keep him in the band in the early '80s. But I don't think KISS would have survived as long as they have with Ace (or Peter Criss for that matter) in the band over the long haul.Even still, after reading about all his crazy stories of drugs, alcohol, and debauchery, I was left with the impression that Ace seems to be a genuinely nice guy. And ultimately, stoned or not, he knew when KISS was heading in the wrong direction.If you're a KISS fan, you'll enjoy the book, as I did. However, I got a little bored with the repetitive drug stories, especially after he left KISS initially. It's clear that he has no real direction in his life and that had it not been for Paul, Gene, and Bill Aucoin, Ace wouldn't be what he is today.

An incredible rock and roll story, as told by Ace Frehley. The story of Kiss is one for the ages but it is almost always told from one particular view point; that of the remaining members and not the “other” founding members. To understand the real story you need to see all sides and this book is a great starting point to know the whole story. Ace holds nothing back, telling us all, even the stories when he was not exactly acting appropriately. I found the book to sound honest and I was a little bit surprised by how controlled Ace is in the book. I was expecting Ace to go after Paul, and especially Gene more, but Ace never gives in to that temptation. If you are a Kiss fan, or a historian of Rock and Roll, here is a point of view we rarely ever see.